


if you need to fall apart

by ThisJoyAndI



Category: Nashville (TV)
Genre: 5x01, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-22
Updated: 2016-12-22
Packaged: 2018-09-11 01:10:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,700
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8947264
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThisJoyAndI/pseuds/ThisJoyAndI
Summary: (i can mend a broken heart) Juliette, Avery, and unwavering support. 'She should have died, and Avery’s arms wrap around her tightly as she sobs, hot tears coursing down her cheeks and soaking his shirt. She should have died, and yet, somehow, she’s alive.'





	

Her inability to walk, to do pretty much anything unassisted, is infuriating, but Juliette finds that Avery’s desire to help her, to love her, annoys her more than being unable to use her legs. She loves him, she does, but can’t he see that she’s worthless? The only thing she has ever been good at is performing, and how will she ever perform again if she can’t even walk over to their daughter and pick her up? She can barely move a toe, her body unused to sitting down for such extended periods of time. There’s an ugly, red gash on her forehead, still prominent even after three weeks, and yet Avery continues to look at her as if she is the loveliest sight he has ever seen. She can’t understand why he’s still around. If it were her, she would have taken their daughter and fled. Hell, hadn’t she fled of her own volition when everything just got too much and she couldn’t bare to face her own problems? Avery had been willing to support her then, and now here he is, dutifully pushing her wheelchair, handing her their daughter when before all of this, Juliette would have been able to pick Cadence up herself.

The mere sight of him once more in her house, their home, the place where so much had gone wrong, where she’d made so many mistakes, pains her more than she can say. So much has changed in the last three weeks, but yet Avery remains as kind, as caring, as he has ever been. Truly, she doesn’t know how in the world she ever deserved this man. All she knows is that now, she definitely doesn’t. How will she ever be a good wife, a good mother, if she can hardly even go to the bathroom by herself? Cadence will soon enough be walking, whilst her mother remains trapped in a wheelchair. The rational part of her knows that there is no way she could have caused the crash, but the other part of her wonders if this wasn’t going to happen all along, if she wasn’t meant to burn bright, but burn quickly. She can only be thankful that she’s still alive, that she can still be a part of Cadence’s life and be able to watch her little girl grow up, but aside from that, what kind of life will she have now? All she wants is to know everything for certain, for the doctors to confirm whether she’s paralysed from the waist down or not, because the promise of someday using her legs once more, of someday regaining everything she has ever lost, is tormenting her. Every day she looks down at her now useless legs, and every day they refuse to budge.

After she asks him, Avery drives her to the site of the crash without protest, Juliette dozing off somewhat as he drives out of Nashville and down the highway, her weariness an unwanted side effect of her copious amounts of pain medication. She hadn’t wanted to take them, fearing that she’d become addicted to them as easily as she had to a bevy of other pills, but an hour after she supposedly forgot to take the recommended dosage Avery simply handed her the pills, Juliette biting down hard on the inside of her cheek to quell the pain. Now all she does is sleep, do her arm exercises, and wait for the feeling in her legs to come back. There’s nothing she can do to make everything happen faster, she can’t just throw money at the problem and expect it to resolve itself. This is worse than cancelled shows, than half-filled arenas. Worse than thinking she was carrying Jeff's baby. Worse than Avery telling her he wanted a divorce. This is punishment, she thinks, for everything terrible she’s ever done – and lord knows it’s a long list.

Avery has to carry her to where she wants to go, and the minute his arms settle behind her legs and lift her up out of her chair, she can barely breathe. She simultaneously feels so inadequate and on fire from his touch, closer to him than she has been in weeks. Even in the dark she can make out every minute detail of his face, the tiny freckle just below his chin that’s hidden by his scruff, the way his breathing hitches as she looks at him. The last time he lifted her like this had been just after Cadence arrived, Juliette finding herself too exhausted to even rise up from the toilet, her lower region still cramping painfully. Avery had been tasked with getting their daughter to sleep for more than five minutes at a time, and after he’d achieved that, he’d simply entered their en suite and scooped her exhausted form up into his arms without a word, depositing her gently on their bed with a soft kiss to her forehead. She’d already been half-asleep at that point, uncaring that she should really use this time to shower whilst Cadence slept, or maybe eat something, but when she woke an hour or so later it was to the sight of Avery, Cadence in his arms. They are both entirely different people now, their daughter an adept sleeper, and yet, she doesn’t think a day shall ever arrive where her body does not welcome Avery’s touch. Even when it is as innocent as this, all she can thinks about is how it felt to have him under her, how it felt to be connected to another person not just physically, but emotionally as well. Avery is _it_ for her, he always has been. But how can she make him stay with her, when she’s like this, half the Juliette she used to be? This isn’t the woman he fell in love with all those years ago, and she can’t delude herself into thinking that in the long run, he’d be content with who she is now. He’s said as such, told her that he loves her, but she knows better. Everyone else eventually leaves, and she won’t make him stay.

She will however, cling to him desperately as realisation washes over her, sitting down within the crash site and trying to piece everything together. She’d thought an angel had saved her, thought that God himself may have intervened to ensure her little girl didn’t have to grow up with a mother, but there’s nothing here. Just uprooted grass and a slightly charred smell to the air. Nothing at all to suggest divine intervention, and yet, out of all of the people on board, she had been the only one to survive the crash. She should have died, and Avery’s arms wrap around her tightly as she sobs, hot tears coursing down her cheeks and soaking his shirt. She should have died, and yet, somehow, she’s alive. Somehow, they make it back to the car, and emotionally and physically exhausted, she crashes almost immediately, tears still wet on her cheeks.

Her nap on the way there ensures she wakes up hours before Avery, when the sun has only just started to rise. In the morning light, she can see how truly empty the crash site is, how entirely devoid of any evidence the field is. This is where her life changed, and it looks like an ordinary field. She doesn’t know what she wanted to find, but the lack of anything at all annoys her more than she thought it would.  She dragged Avery out here, got Emily to look after their daughter, for nothing. She wants an answer, she wants a reason. She wants something, anything, but all she has is nothing. A little melancholy, Juliette sits in silence as she watches Avery sleep. The morning after they first slept together, the unfamiliar bed had ensured she woke before he did, and she studies him as intently as she did then. His hair is longer, but aside from that he’s exactly the same as he was all those years ago. He’s still the most handsome man she’s ever seen, kind and gentle and loving. She’s never been good enough for him, never deserved his love. How can she think she deserves it now? How can he even look at her, after all the pain she’s put him through?

Juliette tells him that she wants to go home, but really it is the presence of Avery, and then Cadence, that has made that house a home. Before, it was simply a place she went when she wasn’t touring, a place she could sleep and write and hide away from the rest of the world. She still has her land, and maybe it’s time she did something with it. Cadence is so close to walking, and Juliette’s certain she’ll be running by the time something close to what she’s imagined could be constructed on the land. Besides, it isn’t as if she’s going to be able to jump back into touring straight away. She doesn’t know if she ever wants to, not when touring means flying, not when every flight is a risk. She may have survived death this time, but she isn’t going to tempt fate. She isn’t going to let them realise their mistake. 

She wants to shove Avery away when he kisses her, wants to berate him for being such a fool, but selfishly, she welcomes the kiss. It’s short, a mere peck, but it’s just like she remembered. And it’s been so long since she felt his lips on his, so long since his fingers caressed her cheek as if she is made of porcelain, so long since his eyes looked deep into hers, expressing more than words ever could. She should shove him away, but she doesn’t, because she’s never been able to resist Avery Barkley.

She’s alive. She’s alive, when really, she should be dead, and Avery loves her. These are two facts she is just going to have to accept, because with Avery looking at her with something she doesn’t think she’ll ever be able to name and her heart beating inside her chest, she doesn’t think that they’re ever going to change.


End file.
